Chapter 5: Dungeon and Slave -Part 1-

Chapter 5:
Dungeon and Slave
-Part 1-

HEY, EVERYONE. So I guess I’ve washed a little girl’s underwear now. That sure is a thing, scrubbing the front part of a tiny thong, but I swear it’s not like, a sex-crime thing? I currently worked as a slave for Yoi, the young girl I called master, and did all the chores that needed doing in her day-to-day life.

My name is Yoshida Shuta, but these days people mostly called me ‘Shooter’ or ‘Mr. Slave.’ I’ve worked all sorts of part-time jobs starting from back in high school, but I’ve never worked at a cleaner’s, unfortunately. It wasn’t like this was the first time I was stuck on laundry duty, though.

Back when I lived with my old karate instructor in Okinawa, I ended up doing laundry for him and his family quite a bit. One of those family members happened to be his high-schooler granddaughter, who was pretty fussy when it came to her things. It was always, “Put that in a net!” or, “You have to wash that by hand!” with her, but her underwear obsession took the cake. She eventually got so tired of nitpicking that she told me she’d just do it herself. Her face got weirdly red when she yelled at me, but I think that’s just a puberty thing. Extra…face-blood? Look, I’ve never worked as a biologist either.

One more person lived at Yoi’s mansion, a girl by the name of Gangi Mari (or Ganjamary, depending on who you asked.) She didn’t even lift a finger to wash her own underwear, despite the fact she used to be a high school girl back in our old world as well! Not only that, but it didn’t seem to bother her that a guy like me was the one doing it. I always thought girls her age were finicky when it came to this stuff, but it looked like I was wrong. I just don’t understand girls, I swear.

Anyway, it was a slave’s job to take care of their master.

Taking a look around the town of Bulka, it was plain to see that slavery was a part of daily life here. You’d see slaves following their masters around wherever you looked, carrying belongings and just generally doing whatever they were commanded to do.

I didn’t know what Mari had seen since coming here, but she didn’t seem to even blink at slavery, so I suppose she accepted it as just a reality of this world. She was also a part of the Templars, an armed religious group working under the Church, which probably made her close to the bigwigs running the town.

There’d been warrior-monks in Japan too, back in the day, and they held considerable power in medieval and feudal Japan. The difference between me and Mari was like the difference between heaven and earth. Though we’d both been sent to this world and gotten a fresh start on a new life, how we started was completely different, a fact made painfully evident just by looking at our lives now.

“Doing slave labor really does suit you,” Mari commented nonchalantly as she watched me wash.

“I’ve been meaning to ask—you’re not bothered having me wash your undies, even though I’m a dude?”

She shrugged. “Why should I be? You’re a slave, and it’s normal for slaves to handle all the little stuff like that.”

“Listen, Mari—”

“You don’t get to call me that. That’s Miss Gangi Mari to you, understand?” She aimed a ferocious kick at me as I scrubbed away at a camisole, but I was used to it these days. I just jumped out of the way.

“Why are you dodging?” Mari huffed. “Just sit still and let me kick you!”

“Yeah, weird that I wouldn’t want to be kicked, huh? Look, get off my back. I’m very busy. Slave stuff, you know?”

“Hmph. So, what were you going to ask?”

“You were born and raised in Japan, so shouldn’t you be a little more, I dunno…” What was the right word? “Bashful? Shy? Like, traditional Japanese lady stuff.”

“You’re just breathtakingly stupid, aren’t you? How about you get bashful and shy in this world and see how far it gets you,” she snapped, venom dripping from her words.

Those words shook me. What had Mari endured, to make it this far? Spending puberty, the most tumultuous years of her life, in another world, and as a girl on top of all that. I could hardly imagine it.

***

Anything you brought into a dungeon needed to have a certain amount of varied utility and, of course, you had to make sure it was well maintained.

“Maces,” I muttered to myself, polishing my new secondhand mace with an old rag, “are pretty interesting weapons when you think about it.” I’d been talking to myself a lot recently.

I didn’t really have experience with a blunt weapon. Poles and tonfa back at karate, sure, but the only real similarity in this case was ease of use. All you had to do was swing them around at your opponent and, unlike with bladed weapons, you didn’t have to worry about what angle you got ’em at. It took time to learn how to use a bladed weapon properly, so it had been a good idea to pick the mace instead. Made me thankful to Miss Yoi for allowing it. “Y’know, I can’t help but think of Saki’cho when it comes to maces.”

Though I’d lived in the village for around two weeks by the time he passed, I hadn’t spoken a word to Saki’cho, that previous leader of the hunters. He dual-wielded maces—or he had against the wyvern—but I knew nothing else about the poor goblin. Maybe he could’ve given me a few pointers on maces if he were still alive…except no, if he were still alive, I wouldn’t have been sent to town looking for replacement hunters in the first place. I’d still do well enough with my mace. “But still,” I mused, “there’s a bigger problem.”

Or rather, a scantier problem. I had nothing practical in the way of armor. Yoi didn’t need anything too heavy because she was a spellcaster, and Mari was decked out with her own set of armor to hold the frontline. Me? I was just the pack mule of the group. I had to get by with a pair of shoes and a cloak.

From the adventurers I’d seen back in the village, I thought they all wore chainmail and cosplayed Vikings, but at the very least Yoi and Mari were exceptions to that rule.

In order to keep myself from breaking out in blisters, I started wearing boots. Naked with nothing but boots on gave me enough bad vibes, but it really crystallized when I pulled on my cloak: I was dressed like a flasher. A real top-tier, balls-out kinda flasher too—a dark-cloaked sausage-unveiling alley-lurking hellpervert.

“They look great on you, Mr. Slave!” Yoi cooed.

“Th-thank you…” Hooray. Well, whatever. Shoes and a cloak, count your blessings. Besides, it was the norm for slaves to be naked. Even a sweet little girl like Yoi wouldn’t think to give me clothes. Even so, our party felt a wee bit light compared to other adventurers. Hmm! Wonder why?

I may have been naked pretty much the whole time since I got to this world, but this was the first time I was worried about a lack of protection.

The worries swirled in my head but time marched forward. With Yoi and Mari’s things in hand, the three of us headed off to the dungeon together.

As we walked along a country road after leaving Bulka, Yoi began to explain dungeons to me.

“There are two types of dungeons: ruins that our ancestors left behind, and big webs of connected cave systems.”

Yoi was much wiser and more learned than her youthful appearance suggested. She had mountains of books back at her luxurious mansion, and it was a good bet that they were magical grimoires, given her occupation.

It was all fine and dandy for her to stay up studying, but it felt like a waste of lantern oil for anyone to stay up that late, so I hoped she’d learn to go to bed earlier here on the road. Even just the previous night, she drifted off and fell asleep into her open book. Not only that, but while she slept, she had a slight “accident.”

Which, by the way, is why I was taking extra care to scrub that underwear of hers. Comes with the territory, all right? “Dungeons come in all different sizes, too. The one we’re going to, for instance, is a little base of ruins just out of town. People say the whole thing’s pretty small, though!”

I adjusted the baggage on my back. “Would that be classified as a naturally formed dungeon, or would it fall under the ruins archetype?”

Yoi put a finger to her lips as she pondered. “A little bit of both, I guess?”

“Really, now?”

“Mmhm! Most of the dungeons Ganjamary and I have visited lately have been smaller ruins. The one we’re going to this time used to be a cave, but people long ago built stuff on top of it, and now they’re ruins. So if you think about it, they’re kinda like ‘naturally formed ruins.’ They don’t go that deep either, but then again, we haven’t gone that far inside.”

I nodded. “So it’s a combination of both. It doesn’t seem like there would be many you could clearly say fall into one category or the other, if you put it like that.”

“That’s right.”

“Then may I ask one more question?”

“What is it, Mr. Slave?”

Gah! What a cute kid! “What, exactly, is the definition of a ‘dungeon’?”

“Definition?” she asked, cocking her head to the side. Too cute, it was ridiculous!

Mari answered. “It depends on whether or not it has a master.”

Hm. I was expecting it to be all about treasure or magic or something. Also—ugh—I wasn’t asking Mari.

Ah well, it was an answer. “A master? You mean the only difference between ancient ruins, caves and such, or a dungeon is a boss monster?”

“Yeah, basically. Huge monsters might make a deserted ruins its new home, or some weird monsters might just naturally migrate there. For caves, we’re usually looking at ogres.”

“Would it be ogrely presumptuous to assume that these are big, butt-ugly monsters?”

“No,” she said, ignoring my brilliant comedy. “They’re pretty much the same as the folklore versions in our world.”

“Got it.”

“You’re so smart, Mr. Slave!” Yoi gleefully exclaimed.

“You think?”

“Yeah!” She hopped to her tiptoes and reached up with her hands. Oh! Head pats? I crouched down and bowed my head.

“Good boy!”

“Thank you so much, Miss Yoi.”

Aww! Wait. Aww? Aww, no, nope. I was being trained like a dog by a goddamn kid. No to Stockholm Syndrome, yes to my waiting wife.

Mari looked down on me with a gaze that was half-scorn, half-eye roll. “He went to school, so he should at least know that much. You graduate college?”

“No, I dropped out.”

“You really are the scum of society, aren’t you?”

Cold. Murderous. Rage. I don’t think I’d ever been that angry at her before, but I had no choice but to grin and bear it for now. Here I was thinking that we were starting to understand each other a little more, but it always ended like this. Oh, I’d wipe that smug look off her face sooner or later, let her goddamn wait. I guess we’d both have to wait, come to think of it, because we were heading into dangerous territory. Couldn’t lose focus, not now.

“Now then, everyone!” Yoi cried. “Let’s get off the road and head to the base by the dungeon!”

Our destination was already in sight.

***

We arrived at the remains of a small abandoned settlement after about a half-day’s trek from Bulka. There were only about twelve houses here total, and an ancient building bigger than anything else in the area. The roof was caved in, but its sturdy stone walls still stood. Small as the rest of the settlement was, this old building was far more impressive than any of the clay and dirt houses back home. I mean, back at Apegut.

The surrounding area was coated in thick shrubbery and dotted with enormous, overgrown trees. As humans vanished, nature came to reclaim…all of her shit, just the whole scene, with big trees and stuff.

“This village has been here since long before the governor of Bulka came to rule over these lands,” Yoi explained as we entered the dilapidated stone building. “There couldn’t have been more than a hundred people living here, though, judging by the number of houses. Anyway, the dungeon is further inside.”

It looked like Mari and Yoi had been using this area as a base of operations. We were close to the dungeon now, so they were getting cautious. As a spellcaster, the only melee weapon Yoi had was a knife for self-defense. Her true weapon was a rather extravagant grimoire that looked a little ridiculous in her tiny hands, which I assumed was a medium for her magic.

Aside from that, she held a small, odd lantern as we prepared to delve into the dungeon.

“What would that be?”

“A magic lantern! It uses mana to keep the flame burning. There’s an incantation engraved inside it that ignites once you add a teensy bit of blood. It draws on your mana to activate, so even people who can’t wield magic can use it!”

“Yeah, it seems pretty handy to—hold on, hey, can we focus on that blood bit?”

“Hold out your hand please, Mr. Slave. I’m going to prick your finger with this little needle.”

“Agh, wait, I’m not good with pain!” I said, squirming and shuddering.

I offered up my finger to her all the same, which she promptly pricked. A small droplet of blood formed from the tiny wound, which Yoi put inside the lantern.

“If you turn the knob here, then it lights the flame,” she explained.

“Yeah, I can see. Huh.”

“People like me need to really conserve our mana, so I don’t usually use it.”

“Is that right?”

“Mmhm! Everyone has mana inside them, so we usually use frontline fighters or pack mules to activate these magic tools. Got it?”

“Yes, I understand, Miss Yoi!”

As Yoi and I talked, Mari prepared to head into the dungeon. She wore iron-reinforced leather armor over her normal sleeveless outfit now, something that looked like it was made by pressing tan leather between some kind of iron plate.

There was almost nothing better than metal armor in terms of protection, but it was also heavy and cumbersome, and left the wearer susceptible to both heat and cold. It’s a conductor, you see—if it was cold, it stole your heat, and if it was hot, you were damn well gonna get hot too. Combining leather and metal sacrificed some defense, but also prevented the slow, environmental exhaustion of full-metal armor. Mari’s particular armor sure as hell didn’t come cheap.

Then there was her longsword. For some reason, people in this world seemed to have a particular fondness for broader, thicker blades. These were made to emphasize endurance over sharpness, and if they dulled you could still use centrifugal force to absolutely wreck somebody’s day.

Mari pulled her sword from its scabbard and inspected it; the way she looked over the blade and the hilt gave me the impression she had some practical experience. You always gotta check the hilt, just as I told young actors back when I taught part-time sword lessons in a theater group.

“Have you ever killed someone with that?” I blurted.

“That’s a stupid question. I’m a Templar working for the Church. If they order me to kill a bunch of bandits, I do so without a second thought.”

“O-oh…”

Utter nonchalance as she slid her longsword back into its sheath. Afterward, she pulled a few small glass capsules off her belt and inspected them.

“What are those?”

“Potions, all with different uses. They boost stamina, physical strength, perception, recovery, and even adrenaline. You need some, too?”

“What, so they’re like ’roids? I think I’ll pass on that.”

“Hmph. Suit yourself.”

An RPG is one thing, but real-life health potions or stamina-enhancing medicine gave me hardcore junkie vibes. Nah. I’d pass.

Mari, on the other hand, casually poured the contents into a strange container and injected it into her arm, just like a syringe. “You pour one into this special tool and stick it into your arm like this. Guhh—!”

“Which one was that?”

“Strength enhancer. The effects last about half a day, so it’s perfect for pushing through to the deeper parts of the dungeon.”

“Are there any side effects from using a bunch at once?”

“Yeah, if you’re not cautious. I can use magic, so that gives me a certain amount of control over my body. You’re a newbie, so you better not take on too many at once. Ha.” Mari looked ecstatic after her hit of potion. She turned to Yoi, who was poring over a map of the area. “I’m ready to go.”

“Roger that! You take the front like always, and I want you in the back, Mr. Slave. We’ve already taken out anything that could get in our way, so let’s head straight for the deeper parts.”

“Got it,” said Mari.

I nodded as well, adjusting the baggage on my back. With a mace in my right hand and the magic lantern in my left, I was ready to enter the dungeon.

“All right, then,” Mari said, smirking. “Let’s do this.”

Just like you’d expect from a cave, the entrance to the dungeon proper was fairly wide. Imagine the entrance hall of a fancy apartment building and you’re on the right track. The walls were meticulously carved from stone to be proper walls, and the people who once lived here probably intended it to be a residence, or a warehouse, or maybe even some kind of shrine.

“We’re gonna lose sunlight the moment we go deeper inside,” said Mari. “I’ll be making my own light using my mana. You make sure to hold that lantern carefully so Yoi can see using yours.”

“Will do. You can use magic even though you’re not from this world?”

“I trained my ass off to do it. It took four long years of blood, sweat, and tears to get to where I am now.”

Sounded rough, but at least I’d be able to use magic too if I just trained hard enough. I was already powering the lantern with my own mana, so maybe I just had to learn the theory. The four years of blood, sweat, and tears part was a bit concerning, admittedly.

Although I’d been tossed buck naked into a forest just outside of Apegut, Mari had descended on a town church like an angel. Whatever her horrible, horrible personality, people saw her as some kind of holy woman. She probably worked her butt off to meet the expectations that came with that.

I held my mace and lantern in my left hand, pressing my other hand against the wall as we headed further inside.

“From what I’ve heard, there should be a shrine in the deepest part of the cave. It’s been fifteen years since anyone’s been here, and there haven’t been any adventurers to clean up any monsters either,” said Yoi.

“The, uh, ‘dungeon master’ showed up because no one lived here?” I asked.

“That’s right. Right now it’s just the master of the dungeon and some kobolds camping out inside.”

Ah, those jackal-headed guys again.

“Kobolds always seem to nest in caverns and abandoned mines,” said Mari. “Places like that are easier for them to live together, I’ve heard. They especially like to get their paws on weapons or tools some shmuck left behind.”

“I see. That’s pretty useful to know.”

“There’s also the giant snakes. Forgot to mention the giant snakes. It’s humid in these kinds of places, which means it stays warm even in winter. There’s a chance we might run into one. We eliminated most of the kobolds last time, though.”

I didn’t get the feeling Mari would use kobolds like a hunter. Killing them would be enough for her.

“The problem is going to be the deepest part of the cave. This used to be a shrine of some sort, yeah, but even deeper inside I hear there’s an underground lake. If there’s a boss, that’s their hideout.”

“Who are we up against? A wyvern or something?”

“No. Not altogether different, though.”

“What do you mean by that, Mari?” The clacking sound of our boots echoed throughout the cave as we marched.

“You know what a basilisk is?”

“No, I don’t. Sounds like a manga.”

“Tch. This is what you get for being illiterate.”

“Come on, cut me some slack. I haven’t had a day to myself ever since I got here.”

“Mr. Slave,” Yoi piped in, “a basilisk is a giant lizard monster with a crest on its head, like a rooster. You can think of it like a dragon that crawls along the ground.”

“Oh, a dragon! Thank you, Miss Yoi.” I was so happy to get an answer that I found myself giving Yoi head pats right back as I thanked her. She let out the most ridiculously adorable giggle I’d ever heard and I was just gonna die, it was too much, my life was over, too cute, end me now.

“Back in our world,” said Mari, “a basilisk was supposedly a venomous monster that could turn people to stone with its gaze. You really never heard of such a thing?”

“Can it do the same thing in this world?”

“Nope. Though it won’t turn you to stone or anything, it can paralyze anyone it encounters with fear.”

“Using its roar?”

“Hrm. So you do know about it.”

“Back when I was at my village, I took down a wyvern with another hunter,” I said with a smirk.

“Oh?”

Mari looked completely uninterested.

“You did, Mr. Slave?” There we go. Some appreciation!

“That I did. When I was working as a hunter back in this village way out on the frontier, a wyvern came out of the forest and started causing all sorts of trouble. Me and another hunter named Nishka the Scalesplitter, one of the strongest hunters near the village, teamed up to take it down together.”

“That’s amazing!”

“Really, now. It hasn’t even been a year since you got here, right? There’s no way you could’ve pulled that off.”

“I did, though.”

Mari suddenly stopped and placed a hand on her sword. “Then how about you prove it to me.”

“Huh?”

“There’s a wide-open area coming up with some kobolds we haven’t taken care of yet. We’re not even looking at ten. Think you can take them on with me?”

“Yeah, I’ll give it a shot.”

“Hm. I’ll take the right, you’re left.”

I set the baggage I was carrying on the ground, then double-checked that the sword at my waist was ready to be used just in case, and tightened my grip on my mace.

“And as for you, Yoi…”

“What is it, Ganjamary?”

“We could end up drawing the basilisk to us if we make too much noise, so no combat spells, okay?”

“Okay!”

“Do you think you could light up the ceiling with some magic, though?”

“Leave it to me!”

The three of us nodded to each other, our roles decided. I crouched down and trailed after Mari as we followed along the wall, eventually coming upon the wide-open area she described. The kobolds were there, plain as day.

One, two, three…you know, hearing ten was a little different from seeing ten.

I understood Mari not believing I’d taken down a wyvern, but there wasn’t much I could do about that. What I could do was show how useful I could be. The better I proved myself, the sooner I might get freed for outstanding service.

“Ready for this?” Mari asked.

“You know it!”

Pumped as hell now, we broke into a sprint toward our targets.

Mari and I kept our posture low to the ground as we ran. She drew her longsword and kept it ready at the right of her waist, just as I’d seen in my time practicing swordsmanship.

I wondered, had she used swords before entering this world? Wasn’t a bad stance, after all. But the way she kept her grip on the handle told a different story. She held it with both hands pressed against each other, no space in between like you were supposed to in Japanese swordsmanship. She was planning to let centrifugal force do the work for her and really do some damage, but that was risky stuff.

Her technique, if you wanna call it that, was actually a blind, murderous charge at the enemy where she had to get the first hit in—no other choice. Not with the way the move left her wide open. She was probably relying on strength to get the job done after that potion. Not a bad tactic, all things considered.

Yoi fired off her light magic, illuminating the inside of the cave. In the newfound brightness, I saw Mari rush off into the group of kobolds on the right side.

It was a bloodbath.

Right as she sliced off one head, she was already bringing her blade down in a broad sweeping motion to slash through more flesh in one clean line.

I wasn’t about to let her show me up, though. I checked out my left flank and went for it, swinging my mace into the kobolds there. While I had zero experience using anything like a mace before, I couldn’t have been more thankful that it was easy as hell to kill with.

The tip of my mace connected with a kobold’s skull with a sickening crunch. I wondered why anyone would bother with bows at all as I kicked away my first hapless victim and set my gaze on more targets. The kobolds were armed with weapons carved from what must’ve been bone, but their movements were clumsy. I nimbly dodged them, bringing my mace down to crush another kobold’s head as their group descended into chaos.

“Metai!”

“Metai metai!”

The kobolds were screaming something in what I assumed was their language as they worked on surrounding me. Which wasn’t as bad as you’d think—if I could get them to drop their guard, then they were easy enough to take care of.

For some reason, the kobolds kept attacking me instead of running away, which flew in the face of what Wak’wakgoro said about them being cowards. Though they were still clearly afraid of something. If I had to guess, I’d blame the basilisk deeper in the cave.

I aimed every blow squarely at their heads. The shock of impact rang through the handle into my fingers as their heads caved in one by one, and yet my hands never went numb no matter how many I crushed dead.

Five swings total and it was over. But the sensations from my new weapon had my muscles trembling in shock.

“How’s it looking over there?” Mari shouted.

“Mission accomplished. They’re done.”

“Good. I’m done over here, too. Yoi! Which one of us was faster?!”

Mari was barely breathing harder than normal as she flicked blood off her blade. Had to admit, the way she slowly slid her sword back into its sheath was pretty badass.

“Mr. Slave was just a little bit faster.”

“What? You can’t be serious!”

“I was taking on five over here. What about you?”

“Four…” She shook her head. “What kind of monster are you?”

“Hey, man. I do karate, okay?”

“Cheater,” Mari said, glaring and pouting.

I just smiled. “I’ve never killed anyone before, though. Anything I did was usually at a dojo.”

“Wh-what, you trying to say it wasn’t even a challenge?”

I wiped the smile from my face. “No, I’m not. You may come off as a bit wild, but your technique was sound. Your movements were nothing short of impressive.”

“H-hmph…” Mari turned away from me and snorted. Oho, but what was that? Was somebody’s face getting a little red? Was somebody a little embarrassed?

“Then let’s hurry up and take our spoils from them,” said Yoi. “Mr. Slave, you take the ones over there, and you can get the ones here, Ganjamary.”

I didn’t get it. “Spoils?”

“Their sharp teeth! We can take them back to the guild, and they’ll give us a reward. Kobolds are usually causing trouble outside of town, so there’s always a bounty for this work.”

I nodded. “Gotcha.”

I pushed on a smashed kobold face with my foot to check on its teeth. Not pretty. This was going to be one nasty job.

“Here, use this.” Mari handed me a thick carving knife, holding onto the sheath while offering me the handle.

“Thanks.”

“First you bash their gums with the handle,” she said, “then you dig out the tooth with the blade.”

“Looks like you’re already a pro.”

“Taking care of pests is another part of a Templar’s job. When it gets really bad, they send a whole squad of us to deal with it.”

I followed her example and started collecting the kobolds’ canine teeth. Yoi used some water from the canteen to prepare a damp cloth for me, which I used to wipe the blood from my face and hands.

“You have my humblest gratitude, Miss Yoi.”

“Of course! It’s a master’s job to take care of their slave!” she said, proudly puffing out her chest.

I patted her on the head again, and in a millisecond her proud demeanor crumbled into contentment.

Mari sighed. “What do you two think you’re doing? C’mon, we have to keep moving. There was something strange about these kobolds.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Mari, meanwhile, still had some blood splattered on her face. Aside from that, she barely had any blood on her elsewhere—just went to show how skilled she was at doing this. I could learn a thing or two from her.

I hoisted our baggage onto my back once more, holding hands with Yoi as we followed Mari into the depths of the dungeon.

“It’s starting to smell pretty rank down here,” I noted.

Mari nodded. “We made it about this far the last time we came. The mark I left on the wall is still here, too. I think I’ll go ahead and carve it again to make it clearer.” She took out the same knife she used to dig out kobold teeth and dug it into an X-shaped mark on the wall.

“How much farther do we have left?”

“According to the old building plans I saw,” Yoi offered, “I’m guessing around a thousand steps to the deepest part. It’s not that far if we make a beeline for it, but there’s always the chance we’ll run into some scary monster.”

“This is supposed to be one of the smaller-scale dungeons, right? Does that mean the bigger ones take days to get through?”

“Yeah, something like that,” Mari said slowly, thinking it over. “There are some ancient ruins with complex layouts that take more time, and the abandoned mines definitely take a few days to get through. For a place like this, you’re usually in-and-out in two or three days if nothing happens. The problem for us is going to be the basilisk.”

“But monsters as huge as basilisks need to eat tons of prey in order to survive, right? How do they survive if they stay holed up in a dungeon?”

“There are two ways to explain that, Mr. Slave.”

“Oh? Please enlighten me, Miss Yoi.”

The two of us still held hands as we followed behind Mari, the latter keeping her attention on the forward search and spilling magic light from her hands.

“First, it could be there’s another entrance to this dungeon, and it uses that to head out into the rest of its territory. That, or it could just be asleep.”

“Asleep, huh? That makes sense. Back when I took care of the wyvern, we waited for it to go back and rest at its cave before finishing it off.”

“Wow! You’re so clever, Mr. Slave!”

“Well, I was a hunter, after all. That, and I had a skilled partner with me.”

“Partner?” Yoi asked, laying a finger on her cheek.

“That’s right. Her name was Nishka the Scalesplitter, and she was famous to the point that everyone near our village and the neighboring settlements knew her name. She was a fierce warrior who had hunted as many wyverns as she’d spent winters being a hunter. She did happen to have one more, not-so-impressive name…”

“Not so impressive?”

“Mmhm. They also called her ‘Tipsy Nish,’ cause she drank like a fish. Even in town, she kept bugging me to take her to the bar.”

“Ha ha! Tipsy Nish the drinking fish!”

“It’s true that she’s a skilled hunter, though. Even back when I used a longbow—badly, I might add—she made it so I hit the wyvern’s weak spot in just one shot. She’s the strongest hunter in all of Apegut, no doubt about it.”

Yoi had a big smile on her face as she listened to me talk. But Mari, she stopped moving forward and turned around to face me.

“Hmph. She’s a girl?”

“Wh-what, is there a problem with that?”

“Look at you. You’ve barely done anything since you got here and you already found yourself a wife and some side-bitch hussy. What a lucky creep you are.”

“Okay, one, you’ve got it all wrong. Two, I’m a slave right now, remember?” I fired back.

‘Doing well,’ my ass. Nishka was a girl, sure, but there wasn’t anything weird going on between us.

Mari’s eyes narrowed as she glared. “I worked for myself, you understand? I worked myself half to death, and…”

Her words trailed off, almost as if she didn’t want to finish that sentence. Maybe something had happened to her in the past that she thought I wouldn’t be able to understand. Maybe something kept her from telling me.

Mari stopped. Turned her attention to the ground—it looked like she’d found something.

“Now, then,” she said slowly, “I’ll tell you a third possible reason.”

“A third what?” Yoi asked.

“A third reason why the basilisk is holed up here.”

Mari crouched down, keeping a wary eye in front of us. There was some kind of bone at her feet, something that looked like a primate skull. Next to that was a completely different, serpentine bone. “This first skull belongs to a kobold. This one belongs to a spotted pike. Look at that, there—we’ve even got some dungeon-worm droppings.”

I blinked. “A pike and a what-worm?”

“Spotted pikes are like pythons, while dungeon-worms are more like giant caterpillars. They feed off corpses and grow to enormous size. This place looks small, but you have to remember that it’s really a massive ecosystem. Big enough that the things living here don’t even have to go outside to find prey.” She adjusted her glasses. “There’s also something else here, something that kobolds and spotted pikes both eat. Take a look.” Mari pulled out her sword and stabbed it into the wall.

Taking that look she asked me to, I saw some kind of huge winged insect pinned to the wall. “The hell is that?”

“Moth flies. We had them back in our world, too. I said there was an underground lake here, didn’t I? Well, these moth flies must be coming up from around there, and by the ton. Hate these super-sized bugs.” With a grunt, a disgusted Mari wrested her sword free from the mammoth-sized moth fly and slid it back into its sheath.

She continued. “Droppings from things like kobolds, spotted pikes, and moth flies all mix together and run into the underground lake, which is where moth fly larvae are born. That’s what the kobolds and spotted pikes end up eating, and the cycle continues. I’m sure there must be other bugs there as well, though.”

“What do growing moth flies eat, then?”

“Use a little imagination. There must be something here that feeds off moss and algae as well, since the walls are so clean,” she said, once again moving forward.

Suddenly, a thunderous roar from the depths of the dungeon shook the walls of the cave. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard something like it. It was nearly the same roar as the wyvern who’d terrorized the village, which meant it had to have come from something similar.

A basilisk.

Trembling, I reached for Yoi’s hand again—but she slapped me away. Giant horrible lizard time wasn’t also hand-holding time. Okay. Fair enough!

***

Walking over uneven terrain puts a surprising amount of strain on you.

Back in the Edo period, people going on journeys supposedly traveled around twenty to thirty miles every day. That may not seem like much, considering people running a marathon can cover that kind of distance in just a few hours or so, but you’ve got to keep in mind that people back then had to take days to make it over bumpy roads and mountain passes. You can’t compare it to the smooth, paved roads in modern times, and it wasn’t like these guys could just travel in a straight line, either.

So people back then would mostly cut their progress short to save energy in case of any unforeseen inconveniences. It was the same idea as we journeyed toward the heart of the dungeon. We’d head straight for a while, have a quick bite to eat, check our equipment, then continue on.

After “cleaning up” the remaining kobolds, we found a nice hollow area off the beaten path where we could keep ourselves hidden. That was going to be our base-camp for the day.

“Usually you have several parties moving forward together when tackling the bigger dungeons,” Mari explained as she turned the lamp into a makeshift stove by removing the outer case, grabbing some cooking utensils for us too. “For ruins, you search every nook and cranny and eliminate any monster nests you find. Once you secure a safe path, the stronger parties have a straight shot at the center of the dungeon.”

Her explanation reminded me of what mountain climbers did when trying to reach the summit of Everest. Similar principles, I guess, but you climb down and kill stuff.

“Why try to explore dungeons in the first place, though?” I mused as we cooked the night’s meal. “We’re making our way through a place other people have already been through before, right? Treasure isn’t going to respawn or something. Or are you going to tell me money just pops in out of nowhere?”

“Well, Mr. Slave, our ultimate goal is to beat the masters of these dungeons.”

“Beating the master of the dungeon, huh? Understood, Miss Yoi.”

“There’s also the earl’s commitment to protecting the territory,” Mari added. “In exchange for collecting taxes, the earl of Bulka has a duty to protect their subjects.”

“Fat lot of help they did for me,” I snapped. “I got forced into slavery, so what’s this guy doing? Something’s messed up if he’s letting slave traders and their idiot adventurers do whatever they want. I’m not being protected at all!”

“There’s nothing strange about that. You’re not a citizen of Bulka, after all.”

“What…?” I could barely muster words. Wasn’t the village chief supposed to work under him or something?

“You said you came from some remote village called Apegut, right?” asked Mari. “There would be a completely different governor over there.”

“I mean, you’re not wrong.” I rubbed my temples. “Hold on, I need you to explain this to me. The village chief may be the governor of our area, but she only holds the rank of a knight. That’s a lot lower than an earl, right? How is she not working for whoever’s in charge of Bulka?”

“That’s where it gets a bit tricky. There’s actually multiple governors who all work together to control a single, larger territory. The one in charge of all those governors would be the earl.”

“Then what does that make the village chief at Apegut?”

“An assistant to the earl, more or less,” said Mari. “Don’t think of it like an employer-employee relationship, it’s more like a freshman-senior thing. Or, no—” she frowned “—maybe it’s closer to a captain of a sports team and the rest of the players on that team.”

“Not a sports guy, but I got the gist. This earl guy is the leader, then.”

Yoi added ground wheat to the portable cookware as we talked, along with some dried vegetables and bacon. Beside her I peeled potatoes, cutting them into smaller pieces and throwing them in the pot as well.

“Then wouldn’t that lead to a confrontation between the different leaders? The number of people under your control shows the kind of power you have, so shouldn’t the village chief be trying to get me back as one of her subjects?”

Mari shook her head. “Interfering in territories outside of your own is a crime. As long as the leader of that particular area doesn’t give the go-ahead, there’s nothing another leader can do, not to mention the power difference between the leader of some remote village and the earl. We’re talking the difference between the captain of a sports team and some no-name player who just got on the team.”

Mari stirred the contents of our portable cooking pot as she gave me another weird sporty explanation. I understood it well enough.

After the pot come to a boil, I turned down the heat and put a lid on it. “So even though they’re both governors, it’s more like a peerage system than anything.”

“Yeah, that’s about right. I bet the whole reason you became a slave in the first place was because you didn’t have anything to prove who you were. Fresh meat to those types.”

“Would it have been any different if I’d been registered at the adventurer’s guild?”

“Nah, probably not,” Mari said as she stretched out. “Adventurers are pretty loose with their money, and plenty of them end up selling themselves as slaves anyway to pay off loans they took out to get started.” She cracked her neck. “This world isn’t a kind one. You’ve got your ferocious beasts lurking outside of civilization, and your greedy rulers lording over you if you do stay. It may seem like only the powerful rule here, but really it’s even worse than that. If you don’t have authority, you don’t get to be human. You became a slave before you realized what was going on, that’s all. You won’t get any sympathy from me.”

I nodded. “I see…”

“But it’s not all bad, Mr. Slave!” Yoi chimed in.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re a contractual slave, not a criminal or war prisoner-turned-slave. As long as you work hard enough to pay off how much you were bought for, you’ll eventually be set free.”

“Seriously? So if I can put my spear to good use and save up, I can buy my freedom?” I asked Yoi, keeping my expectations tempered. I didn’t want to hold it against her if I’d misunderstood, but I did shoot a glance at Mari to check if Yoi was telling the truth.

“Yeah, that’s true and all, but your master needs to approve it as well,” said Mari. “If Yoi doesn’t let you go, then you’ll just have to live with being a slave forever. Too bad.”

“I’d never do something that mean!” Yoi protested. “As long as he works hard, I’ll be sure he gets rewarded!” Guhhhh she was so cute as she frantically tried to assuage my fears! Mari, on the other hand, just stuck her tongue out at me.

What a dick. Just about everything she did pissed me off, so I made a promise to myself that I’d get her back somehow. I wasn’t going with the “revenge is a dish best served cold” route either—I wanted to get payback as soon and nastily as possible.

With palpable tension in the air, we took turns eating the soup from the pot and taking swigs from the bottle of wine we passed around.

All the while I waited for the right time to strike. I’d make sure to teach Mari a lesson as soon as I saw my chance.

It was probably about six in the evening, in a world where time got measured by hours. The sun would be moving behind the mountains on the horizon. It was a bit too early to go to sleep, but my body was exhausted from all my work.

“I think it’s about sleepy-time for me, Mr. Slave.”

“Understood, Miss Yoi. You’re still young, so it’s important that you rest up. You brushed your teeth? You went pee?”

“You’re treating me like a kid! Hmph! Fine, I didn’t pee yet, but I’ll do it now, ’kay?”

Yoi acted like she was mad to hear me nagging her, but she still got up to take care of her business. She left our little alcove to head to the main road.

I’m thoroughly against monsters murdering pissing kids, so I hastily grabbed my mace and stood guard until she finished up. I arranged some of our baggage as a makeshift cushion for Yoi before tucking her in with a cloak.

With Yoi asleep, Mari was first on lookout duty, followed by me, then Yoi once she woke up.

This was a golden opportunity for me, though, and I wasn’t about to let it pass me by. I got up, calling out to Mari as she played with her hair.

“Hey, Gangi Mari.”

“Don’t call me by my full name.”

“Then how about you start using mine? It’s ‘Shooter,’ in case you forgot.”

“Pass.”

“I get not making an effort to be cute for some stranger, I guess, but do you have to be downright nasty?”

“I don’t need for you to think I’m cute…” she paused. “Shooter.”

Look at that, she actually bothered with my name. Did she actually feel like being considerate now?

“Right, uh. Thanks, though.”

“Hmph.”

“I’ve got one more request,” I added, “if you don’t mind.”

“What now?”

“Do some sword sparring with me. We’re about to turn in for the night, right? I’ve got a little too much energy left over to sleep, so I want you to help me burn some off with some…training.”

I didn’t mean that in a dirty way, of course, but the expression on Mari’s faced changed in an instant. There’d been a glimmer of shyness when she finally called me by my name, but now her face was ashen pale. The muscles in her face twitched, and the snobby look she usually had disappeared. Bizarre.

“Training, huh?”

“Right, just a bit of light sparring. Any weapon will do, but how about swords? That’s something you can use, right?”

“What’s your aim here?”

Mari spoke in a hushed whisper, and it wasn’t just because she didn’t want to wake up Yoi. My karate instincts told me one thing for sure: she was ready to kill me depending on what I said next.

She slowly reached for her sword as I spoke.

“It’s simple, really. I’m human, and I’ve got a little something called ‘pride.’ And you’ve treated me like trash the whole time we’ve been together.”

“Ha. What, you want revenge? I’m a Templar, and you’re a slave. We’re worlds apart.”

“Nasty thing to say.”

Mari glared, her hand now firmly on her sword. A spark of something indescribable flared in her expression.

“I think it’s about time for a venting session,” I said. “We’re both party members in the middle of making our way through this dungeon, and we’ve got to help one another, don’t we? As it stands, I’m never going to feel like doing a damn thing for you. And you feel the same.”

Silence from her.

“I’ve taken down a wyvern before, but what about you?”

“I haven’t.”

“I didn’t do it alone. In the air or on the ground, a lizard like that’s not something you can take on half-heartedly or by yourself. Even in a group, it took all we had to put a scratch on it. If we had squabbled with each other, it would’ve been a whole lot worse than a few injured, a few dead. Much, much worse.”

“Tch!” But no words.

“That’s why I want us to put all this hate and ill will toward each other to bed. Tonight. Easier said than done, right? So let’s make a bet: If I lose, I’ll do anything you say from now on, and I won’t ask to be treated as your equal. I’ll be your slave along with Miss Yoi’s.”

I didn’t know about the legalities behind that, but I would admit defeat if I lost. Which I was not going to let happen. Someone as bloodthirsty as Mari…I knew exactly how to handle that sort.

“And if I win—” I started.

“Fine, you’re on. I don’t need to think about what will happen if I lose. Because I won’t.”

“You say that, but you’re talking to third-place in a regional karate tournament. Maybe think twice, buddy.”

“So cocky. I’ll crush that arrogance from your body, pipsqueak. You’re dead.”

She stood up and unsheathed her sword. I think she really meant to kill me. I reached over for my own shortsword, pulled it close. Stood.

Mari dragged the tip of her blade along the ground as we went to the main road. She didn’t say a word, just pointed with her chin that I should follow. Though her back was turned to me, I could tell she hadn’t let her guard down.

I held my sword in my right hand as I trailed behind her until she eventually turned around…with a potion capsule already loaded into her syringe device. The machine hissed, and the potion disappeared into her arm. There was no needle in the applicator. It used some kind of magic.

Damn. I hadn’t thought about doping up. Each of the potion capsules were different shades, so you could tell what you were shooting up if you knew the colors. The problem was, I didn’t know what each color meant, though I was willing to bet she’d just shot up some kind of adrenaline booster. For all her talk of having enough control not to get addicted to potions, she sure seemed to jump at any opportunity to use them.

After her eyes briefly rolled back in ecstasy, they opened. They were a shade darker, now. Even if these potions weren’t having some effect on her mind, they were doing something to her body. Even just overworking your body normally makes your muscles sore beyond the next day, after all.

I guess it was my fault for not going over some ground rules before challenging her.

“No magic, all right?” I said.

“Of course. I’ll let you have that as a handicap.”

“Not much of a handicap after you shoot up with potions first!”

I dashed at her as soon as those words left my mouth. She threw out any semblance of fair play the second she used her potion, so to hell with it.

Shortswords were surprisingly easy for me to use. Think of it as having a blade for a hand. You thrust forward, almost like you’re trying to punch your opponent, and as for defense? You just have to think of the blade as the hardest part of the body, something to block any attacks aimed your way.

Mari, on the other hand, wielded a longsword. Her particular style relied on centrifugal force, which meant there had to be openings between each swing.

Just as I predicted, she crouched down low with her sword when she saw me rushing. She probably planned on doing the same thing she’d done with the kobolds, just one straight slash right across my torso.

Too slow, Mari. I closed the distance, got up close.

Despite the fact that we were using real swords, I wasn’t about to kill one of my party members. Mari didn’t seem to share the sentiment. Her shoulders were tense with rage, and her movements even more wild than when we faced the kobolds. I didn’t want this to be over before it really got started, so I thrust my sword with the intent to graze her neck.

My blade sliced clean through part of Mari’s hair. The expression on her face changed in an instant as she backed off, raising her sword. Instead of pushing her blade with my sword, I pressed it with my left hand.

“Aww. Just one step too slow.”

“Just die already!”

Mari moved quick, fueled by potion, and aimed a slash that could slice me in half like a paper doll. I retreated, but Mari followed up with a flurry of strikes. Might’ve been brute forced, but she knew how to handle a sword.

It was time to finish this. If the fight lasted too long, it might affect us tomorrow. I took an open, lazy stance to lure her in, tempt her into using all that raw strength. She happily obliged.

Sword raised high above her head, she rushed at me. At the last second I dodged to the side, tripping her up, and sent her crashing to the ground. My sword clattered to the ground a few feet away, but now wasn’t the time to care about that.

We grappled one another on the dungeon floor, each trying to get into a mount position, battling for scraps of dominance. Finally I pinned her arms and legs with my own. Victory for me, and an overwhelming one to boot.

“Too bad, Mari.”

“L-Let go of me!”

“Nah. You’ll just start flailing around again.”

“What are you planning to do with me?” she spat.

She was frantically trying to fight me off, practically trying to bite me.

“Do you give up, Mari?”

“No! Kill me!”

Wow, that was…intense.

“I’m not gonna kill you. Now stop struggling, it’s over.”

“Wh-what, are you planning to do, ravish me? Like a big apeman or something?”

“No! What? I—oh man, of course not!”

“Then what are you planning to do?”

“I want to be done! I just wanted us to work off our stress and get rid of the bad blood between us. I wanted a fellow Japanese person to see me as an ally! I’m so sick of this!”

Silence.

“Can’t we just stop this already? You really do treat me like some giant apeman, so can you just…stop? Please?”

“Hmph.” Mari stopped struggling beneath me. Once I was sure she wasn’t going to start thrashing me the moment I let go, I loosened my hold.

“We’re equals from now on,” I said. “Two members of the same party. Sound good?”

“Yeah, party members.”

I stood up and offered Mari a hand.

“Equal party members.”

“Tch. Don’t get carried away,” she spat back.

“Right, then that’s all I wanted as my reward for winning.”

“You serious?”

“Yup, that’s it. I’m satisfied with having you see me as a proper ally…” I shrugged. “For now, at least.”

“What do you mean? You planning on asking me for something later?”

“Maybe, we’ll see. But that aside, Mari…”

I watched as she kept her gaze on the ground.

“What?”

“This thing about a giant apeman. What’s that about?”

The murderous glare Mari shot back told me everything I needed to know. It looked like I was right on the money.

“There’s nothing to talk about.”

“Yeah. Of course there isn’t.”

Of course there was. Some high school girl stuck in another world with no way to defend herself, young and weak and desperate to find strength. Horrible things happened first. Then came the endless potions, the constant rage, the reliance on strength above all things.

“Forget what you heard,” said Mari quietly. “All of it.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about. We were just training, that’s all.”

The awkwardness in the air was palpable. Mari picked up her sword before heading back to the alcove where Yoi was sleeping. After watching her go, I went to collect my own shortsword as well.

What an awful world this was. If Mari didn’t rely on potions to protect herself, to become stronger, then she’d live and die as a high school girl. She could wait for death or pick it on her terms, with the slow creep of potions through her veins. Those were the thoughts going through my head as I crushed her empty potion capsule under my foot.